Metro Games
by TheGamesGuy
Summary: Ever wonder what would happen if Glukhovsky's and Collins' universes collided? I'm sure you haven't but I have. No knowledge of the Metro books or games is required all you need is hunger games knowledge. Please enjoy this monument to mankinds eternal folly. I will try to get a new chapter up every week.
1. Rude Awakening

Authors note: the events of this fanfic happen after Catching Fire think of it as an alternate Mockingjay. It is after Katniss wakes up on the hovercraft after the 75th hunger games. And ifthe capitol did not firebomb district twelve. Again no knowledge of Metro 2033 or 2034 required as some characters will take the same roles as others. I.e. Katniss replaces Artyom, Gale replaces Melnik/Miller, Peeta replaces Khan.

Katniss had been awake for a few hours now she and Gale were sitting at a table in the medical bay of the hovercraft. After she had fired her arrow through the force field around the arena sending an electric shock through it, causing it to deactivate. Afterwards a flight of hovercraft from District Thirteen entered the area and picked up her and some of the other tributes.

"So why did they save us?" Katniss asked. Why does District Thirteen care about me?"

Gale replied "District Thirteen is leading the districts in a rebellion against the Capitol. They plan to use you as" Gale made air-quotes with his hands. "Their mockingjay to rally their cause."

Katniss thought for a moment "Where's Peeta?" she asked at last. She had been so confused by the events that had unfolding she had forgotten such an important question.

Gale took a deep breath "We don't know." He said holding his head low.

"What?" Katniss shouted in a distressed tone. "Does the Capitol have him?"

Gale responded almost immediately "I said we don't know. We couldn't find him, but we know the Capitol doesn't have him either."

Katniss thought for second wondering what could have happened. Her mind was racing, could Peeta have been killed? Or maybe the Capitol did have him and they had just kept quiet about it. Then she thought about Prim. "Where is Prim?" She asked.

"Prim is ok she and your mother are… well they're safe okay." Gale said reassuringly.

"Can I go see them?" Katniss asked.

"If you ask Ms. Coin the answer is no." Gale said "But lucky for you I don't trust District Thirteen, and I can get you back to District Twelve."

"How?" Katniss asked "we can't exactly land, even if we could surely the peacekeepers would notice if a hovercraft landed in the middle of the victors village."

Gale chuckled before pulling out a pen from his pocket. "Did you know on a model A-33 hovercraft the medical bay is the safest area of the vessel?" he cracked a smile "You may want to hold onto something" Gale twisted the pen cap and it was followed by an explosion.


	2. Dark One

Katniss got up off the floor coughing from the smoke. Whatever Gale had done had overloaded the engines causing an electrical fire, the pilot had tried an emergency landing and had been partially successful as Katniss was still alive but Gale was nowhere to be found. "Gale!" she called out "Gale where are you?" no response. Crawling her way through the wreckage she found the body of one of the crewmen. Upon closer examination she found that he had been killed by a gunshot to the head. Nearby she found a Holo-pad that lit up as she stepped closer. She looked at it to see a message.

Katniss,

You were unconscious and I had urgent matters to attend too don't be too angry, District twelve is a half mile to the north there are winter clothes in the footlocker ahead.

-Gale

This made her angry, how could Gale leave her? She found the footlocker Gale had mentioned and put on a heavy black jacket, black gloves and a gray hat. After searching for a few minutes, hoping to find a clue as to Gale's whereabouts, Katniss headed north seeing the lights of District Twelve in the distance. She walked the perimeter of the fence. The electricity was off but she was trying to find the hole that she and Gale used to go on hunting trips. She kept her distance to avoid being spotted, hiding in the bushes whenever peacekeeper patrols passed by.

As she was walking she spotted a massive hole in the fence. An entire section had been torn out. Curiosity got the better of her as she moved closer to investigate. The ends of the fence were frayed, like they had been ripped out by hand. Then she heard voices and saw the flashlights of a patrol, she hid in the bushes to avoid being spotted.

"Man that's some spooky shit! Hey you ever hear the story of the dark ones? Asked one of the peacekeepers

"No, I haven't" Said another

"Okay so three years ago we found a guy lying unconscious near a hole in the fence. We tried waking him up, when that didn't work we brought him over to the Everdeen place. Ms. Everdeen managed to wake him up but he started screaming in pain so she put him on some morphling."

Katniss thought about this, for some reason she remembered a man like that, but she couldn't tell why. Of all the injured men who came in and out of her house why did this one stand out? Her head began to hurt every time she tried to think about it, as if it was forbidden knowledge

"So we get this guy awake and talking but his eyes stayed rolled back in his head for the entire two days. He told us that he was out hunting and that they ran into something."

"What did he run into?" asked a third peacekeeper.

"He said it was a mutt" the other peacekeeper continued "but it sure as hell didn't sound like any mutt we've ever fielded. He said it was huge, towering a full head over him…this guy was six foot eight."

"Holy shit."

"He called it a dark one he said he wasn't sure how he came up with the name, that it just popped into his head. So anyway this dark one had jet black skin and in his words 'was as creepy as a man turned inside out.'"

Suddenly Katniss remembered, every detail soon flooded her thoughts. The man's hair color, his face, complexion even his smell. He had been brought in by two peacekeepers who really didn't seem to care about him. They mostly likely just wanted to wake him up so he could be punished. The man had laid on a cot and didn't move a single time. The man didn't eat or drink anything. Just laid there and only reacted to the peacekeepers who had brought him in and a psychologist from the Capitol. Again the thoughts made Katniss' head hurt.

"He said that with bare hands the dark ones tore his friends apart. When a psychologist came in the next day and asked him to describe the dark ones the man told him that they were incredibly strong and unnaturally evil. Then right before he bought it his eyes returned to normal and he said 'that's all lies'"

"Wait?" one of the peacekeepers interrupted "How is this a scary story if he was lying?"

"Because I checked his pulse and I found him deader than a door nail, but then his mouth opened and he said 'the truth is even scarier'"

"Oh shit!" one of the peacekeepers yelled as the light of his flashlight hit the gap in the fence

"What the hell?" the others began fixing their attention on the hole in the fence.

Katniss shifted her footing hoping to gain a better position to hide. Her foot stepped on a stick that snapped with a loud crack ringing through the icy air.

"Hey!" one of the peacekeepers shouted his flashlight shining at the bush she had been hiding in. "Come out with your hands on your head or we'll shoot!"

Katniss slowly stood up with her hands on her head, half expecting the peacekeepers to shoot anyway, she stood still.

"Step closer!" Katniss moved closer until she was within arm's reach of them "well I'll be damned! Katniss Everdeen! Lucullus radio the commander let him know who we found!"

The peacekeepers were ecstatic. To them Katniss was the ultimate prize, archenemy number one. There were six of them in all one was missing his helmet and wore a balaclava in its place, the others had full gear on. Another was holding a radio but seemed to be having trouble contacting anyone on the other end.

"Donnie, Stas go out there see if anyone else is out there, maybe you'll find lover boy too!" the peace keepers laughed at this obviously referring to Peeta. Two of the peacekeepers made their way out into the forest and soon disappeared into the darkness. "You made a bad move coming back here." One of the peacekeepers said pulling out his knife he held it to Katniss' throat.

"I don't have anything to say to you." Katniss said trying to remain defiant.

Suddenly a flurry of gunshots came from the forest accompanied by screaming. The peacekeeper dropped his knife and readied his rifle, the others followed suit. "What was that?" He said trying to keep his cool. "Stas! Donnie!" the head peacekeeper yelled, no answer. Four silhouetted figures appeared in the darkness. They looked humanoid but their proportions seemed off, their arms were far too long to be human. "What the hell is going on?" said one of the younger peacekeepers almost in a panic.

The four figures vanished but the peacekeepers kept their guns held high ready to cut loose at the slightest hint of danger. With the horror story of the dark ones still in their heads it made sense that they were so wound up. Suddenly a massive black creature materialized in front of the peacekeepers, its hands outstretched towards the head peacekeeper. The creature was tall and humanoid with jet black skin with and two even darker eyes on its head but no mouth nose or any other features. Just looking at it made Katniss' head hurt. The peacekeepers fired at it but it disappeared just as quickly as it appeared. The head peacekeepers eyes rolled back, he screamed in terror as he lifted his gun and proceeded to shoot the others. His eyes rolled back in place and he fell to his knees in shock as the creature appeared before him again holding out a four-fingered hand towards him, it touched his head with the index finger. His eyes lit up in a flash of blue light before he collapsed on the ground. The creature then turned its gaze towards Katniss, emitting a deep warbling sound as its black eyes fixed on her.

Katniss bolted, running as fast as she could down the street not looking back even once. As she kept running the story of the dark ones occupied her thought as she ran. Could they be true? She saw the man the peacekeepers had brought and she possibly saw one kill six armed men. But what worried her even more was the term "Dark ones" "ones" plural, could there be more out there? She kept running until ahead of her she saw the light of another patrol running towards her, no doubt they heard the gunshots. She couldn't go forward and she certainly wasn't going back towards the dark one.


	3. Peeta

Katniss had three options, stay still and let the peacekeepers and the dark one catch her, run to the peacekeepers, or run back the way she came, straight into the dark one. All three seemed a death sentence she looked around for a place to hide as the light from the flashlights came closer. She found a small alley between two buildings and quickly ducked inside and hid as the peacekeepers ran by. She held her breath and closed her eyes, anything that could stop them from finding her. The peacekeepers ran by paying no attention to her. Katniss slipped out of the alley and started her way down the road she kept moving keeping her head low as not to attract attention. She made her way down the streets toward the victors village were her house was.

As Katniss walked down the empty street her head started hurting again, the same feeling she had around the dark one. Katniss was becoming rather nervous now as the pain was only getting worse. She was jumping at shadows now constantly looking behind her as she was now running down the snowy streets. Her foot caught something, maybe a rock or perhaps a loose brick, and she tripped hitting the ground with a thud. Ahead of her she saw the headlights of a capitol jeep driving towards her. She struggled to regain her footing but the ground was slick with ice and she couldn't stand. Suddenly she felt a pair of arms wrap around her body lifting her to her feet. She looked to see a man wearing a ski mask who immediately motioned with his hand for her to follow him. Katniss followed as he ran in between two houses. The jeep stopped and the peacekeepers shined their flashlights towards them.

"Run!" the man said taking off in the opposite direction. Katniss followed behind as they hopped a wooden fence to safety. "This way hurry!" he said as they started running towards the victor's village. He ran up to one of the houses and began struggling to unlock the door. As Katniss looked around she realized that this was the Mellark house. The man threw the door open and she followed him inside. He shut the door and pulled of his ski-mask. And to her surprise the man was Peeta. A smile lit up her face as she hugged him tightly, there was no one she would rather have with her right now.

"Whoa easy, it's been less than twenty-four hours and you already miss me?" Peeta said laughing

"Shut up! I thought you were dead." Katniss said overjoyed to see him alive "But how did you escape? How did you get here so quickly?" she asked

Peeta paused for a second, "I don't know." He said at last "I was in the arena and I remember a capitol hovercraft picked me up they sedated me, but then I woke up here."

Katniss gave him a quizzical look. "Just like that? Do you think the capitol dropped you off?"

"I don't think so" he said "I woke up by a hole in the fence and that was it." Katniss thought of the dark ones. "You look hungry how about I make us something to eat okay?"

"That would be nice." Katniss replied.

Katniss sat down at a table in the kitchen while Peeta started digging through various pans and cooking utensils. Katniss looked around and noticed the house was unusually quiet. "Where is your family?" she asked.

Peeta sighed. "They're gone, the capitol took them away."

Katniss immediately thought of her own family remembering what Gale had told her but still worried anyway. "What about my family?" Katniss asked.

"Your mom and Prim are fine." Peeta said reassuringly. "I talked to Madge and a few of my friends after I got back somehow they managed to get on a train and left yesterday while we were still in the arena."

Katniss breathed a sigh of relief. It was completely silent now except for the clanking noise of metal kitchenware. "So what are you making?" she asked trying to break the silence.

"Well your choices are either bread or toast." Peeta said. Katniss laughed at this.

"I'll take toast." Katniss said back. Peeta placed a few slices of bread on a metal tray and slid it into the oven Peeta sat down at the table next to her.

"So how'd you end up here?" He asked.

"Well I woke up in a District Thirteen hovercraft." She said.

"Wait so district thirteen does still exist?" Peeta asked in disbelief.

"Yes it does" Katniss told him. "Gale and I were on this thing, District Thirteen is leading a rebellion and they wanted me to be a figurehead for the whole thing."

Peeta listened attentively as Katniss went through every detail from the conversation with Gale to the trek through the snowy forest. But then she reached her encounter with the dark one.

"The peacekeepers had their guns pointed toward the forest." She said her heart started racing as she remembered the fear. "Then this big black thing just appeared and, then disappeared and the head peacekeeper gunned down the others. I started running and I think you know the rest.

Peeta leaned forward in his chair contemplating what to say next. "I've never seen or heard of anything like that. Could it be a mutt maybe?" he said not knowing what to make of it.

"The peacekeepers said it wasn't a mutt. I don't know what it could have been." She said still rattled from the experience.

"Oh it looks like the food is done." Peeta said trying to start a new conversation. As they ate together they reminisced about their time in the arenas in the 74th and 75th Hunger Games. After they had finished Peeta showed her to her room.

"This was my parent's room but I suppose you can use it for the night." Peeta said "If you need anything, I'm just across the hall."

"Thanks for letting me stay here." Katniss said.

Peeta held out his hands in a welcoming manner. "My house is your house. Goodnight Katniss."

"Goodnight" she said back before shutting the door. As she laid in bed her thoughts were of her family. She wanted to know where they had gone, if they were still okay. She slowly drifted into sleep. Suddenly she was back in the arena, the 74th arena right as she was about to eat the nightlock. But Peeta wasn't there instead he was replaced by her father.

"No Katniss not those berries, those are nightlock and they are poisonous." Katniss was almost in tears as she hugged him. "my, my Katniss look at how much you've grown. But I have to go, they're calling me.

"No don't leave dad!" Katniss shouted

In a flash of light he was gone and Katniss was now in the 75th arena standing by the cornucopia with two dark ones standing a few feet away from her. Her eyes widened in fear but she could not open her mouth or move her feet. The dark ones began walking towards her

"Katniss, Katniss" the words began filling her head "We have watched, we have listened." The dark ones were only an arm's reach away now she could see her reflection in their solid black eyes. "We are always…"

Katniss' eyes shot open as she awoke from the nightmare covered in sweat, her heart pounding. She slowly got up and walked to the door. She opened it to find Peeta in his room sound asleep.

"Peeta." She said quietly. His eyes opened and his head turned to look at her.

"Nightmares?" he asked noticing the sweat and heavy breathing. Katniss gave a slow nod. He scooted over to the right side of the bed. She crawled in alongside him cuddling up to him before falling asleep again.


	4. The Hunter

Katniss and Peeta awoke to a loud knocking on the front door. Peeta crawled out of the bed and started slowly making his way downstairs. "If anything happens, you run, hear me?" Peeta whispered, not wanting to alert their unwanted guest. Katniss gave a slow nod. Peeta made his way to the door at first he thought to open it, but changed his mind when he imagined a team of peacekeepers swarming in. "Whose there?" He yelled. Katniss picked up a large steak knife from the kitchen and backed towards the back door, ready to run.

"Peeta Mellark?" the voice called back "We know you and Katniss Everdeen are here."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Peeta yelled back preparing himself in case the door was suddenly smashed open. "I don't think you have the right place."

"We know it's you Mellark, you two are not under arrest, I say again, not under arrest. Romulus Thread requests you by the north gate immediately. We are here to bring you over there."

Peeta's heart skipped a beat and he soon found himself in a cold sweat. "Why should I listen to you?" Peeta shot back attempting to keep his composure.

"We want to know why a strange man has arrived at the north gate and why he asked for both of you specifically." Both Katniss and Peeta were puzzled. The fence gates were hardly ever used due to the capitols strict laws forbidding out-of-district travel. If the peacekeepers caught anyone outside the fence they would be shot.

"Who is he?" Katniss asked as she walked up to the door, knife at the ready holding it by the blade so she could throw it. She wasn't the best with knives but she was good enough to kill a man.

"When we asked, the only thing he said was 'catnip will know'"

Katniss' eyes lit up with excitement. Only one man in the world called her by that name. "It's Gale" she said to Peeta in a hushed tone. "No one else would say that."

Peeta thought for a second "Alright we're coming out" he said at last. He opened the door to see two unarmed peacekeepers. The peacekeepers motioned for them to follow as they walked back to their jeep. Peeta and Katniss climbed in, Katniss kept the knife in her coat pocket for the entire ride just in case things when sour.

They reached the fence to find nearly two dozen peacekeepers were already there accompanied by Romulus Thread. Thread looked maliciously at Katniss, he hadn't forgotten they last time they had met. Outside the gate was a huge man wearing an ankle-length brown trench coat, the lower half covered by a layer of snow. Under that was a black hoodie, unzipped revealing body armor and a bandoleer underneath. Slung over one shoulder was a duffel bag, over the other was a dirty grey assault rifle. He had on a metallic grey helmet with a visor obscuring his face. Katniss walked up to the fence. As she looked at the man's bear-like frame towering over her she quickly realized he was not Gale.

"You must be the girl called catnip." The man said in a gruff voice.

"It's Katniss" she corrected him.

"As if I didn't already know" he said back chuckling. The man reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a length of twine with a knot in it. "Don't suppose you recognize this?"

Katniss did recognize it, it was one of Gale's rabbit snares. "Who are you?" she asked.

"My name largely depends on what one knows of me. You call me by my job, hunter."

"Wait a moment!" Thread suddenly chimed in, walking up to the fence glaring at the hunter.

"Thread old friend you haven't changed a bit." Hunter said in a condescending tone most likely smirking under his visor.

"You have a lot of nerve coming here Hunter." Thread replied "you're a terrorist, an enemy of the capitol… you do realize I have to kill you." Hunter and Thread stared each other down for a moment before bursting into laughter. "Let him in!" Thread shouted to the peacekeepers. They all readied there weapons pointing towards the gate. A peacekeeper unlocked the gate and Hunter walked in, a gust of wind picking up seemingly on queue. The peacekeepers did not follow Hunter with their weapons rather they kept them trained on the opening until the gate was locked up again.

Hunter lifted the visor on his helmet to reveal a man in his thirties with sunken cheeks and deep brown eyes. "Gale told me you are an archer" he said as he dropped his duffel bag with a thud, he unzipped it. "I saw this and thought of you." He handed her an advanced compound bow as well as a full quiver of arrows. Katniss examined the weapon, even the weapons she used in the arena were not this advanced.

"Wow!" she exclaimed examining the high quality of the weapon

"Come follow me." Thread said to the three of them as he began walking towards a small building near the gate.

"So Thread I hear you've been having some problems with the local wildlife." Hunter said.

"It's more than just wildlife Hunter, these things… they get inside your head." Thread replied

"My order has a motto, if it's hostile, you kill it."

"Yeah that's pretty goddamn difficult when they are killing you first." Thread walked them into the building, inside were rows of cots all occupied by peacekeepers, moans of pain filled the room. Upon examination one could see all of them had bloodstains around their noses and ears and their eyes were rolled back into their heads. "These men all encountered the creatures we have come to call dark ones. We lost about a few others this morning from their injuries."

"Have you tried to help them?" Peeta asked. Always compassionate towards others he found himself felling empathetic these men and women were suffering from.

"We can't, we don't have the medical equipment, and we can't contact the capitol to send help, our radios haven't been working since the attacks started." Thread replied in a grave tone.

"These 'dark ones' don't seem to kill outright. It's like they want us to suffer." Hunter said as is narrow eyes scanned the room. "Thread, do any of these men have physical injuries?"

"They don't, at least not from dark ones" Thread said "there are several with bullet wounds. We don't know what happened to most of these men and we have no living witnesses. The few that can talk say the dark ones spoke to them, but they won't say any more than that."

"I saw what happened." Katniss chimed in, trying to partake in the discussion. "Yesterday night I saw dark one attack a group of peacekeepers."

"Yesterday? Is that what you were running from?" Peeta asked.

"Yes, yes." Katniss dismissed his question "the dark one just appeared in front of them, one screamed and shot the others before the dark one killed him. Whenever I looked at it my head started to hurt"

"You survived an attack?" Thread asked in disbelief.

"If this is true Katniss then you are very lucky" said Hunter. "So we know they're big, we know they're strong and they must have some kind of psychic-."

"What does your psychic nonsense have to do with this?" Thread interrupted seemingly frustrated by Hunters observation

"Nonsense?" Hunter said with a laugh "I've been all across Panem and I've seen weirder shit than this! Don't you remember the blob-mutations in district four? Or the empty men of district eleven? You're hopeless Thread, not only can you not understand, but you don't want to understand."

Suddenly Katniss' head began to hurt. Her thoughts flooded with images of the dark ones, she could hear voices whispering to her but couldn't make out any words. She slumped over the pain rendering her unconscious, Peeta caught her before she hit the ground as he looked to Hunter and Thread with a fearful expression on his face. Thread stood there with a puzzled look on his face as Hunter watched curiously.

"They are here." One of the injured men said.

"Who is here?" Hunters head snapped to the right to meet the man "Who is here? What is going on?" he asked

The man smiled "I am dead, there is no more me…" the man fell back onto his cot, his body limp.

Peeta's attention was fixed on Katniss lying unconscious. "Katniss? Katniss c'mon snap out of it!" he said frantically trying to shake her awake. Suddenly a short burst of gunfire followed by screaming came from outside. Katniss' eyes slowly opened to see Peeta's face. "Oh thank god you're ok" he said breathing a sigh of relief."

"What happened?" she asked. Before Peeta could answer a peacekeeper came running in, his uniform covered in snow but his face covered in sweat.

"The dark ones killed the men at the gate!"

The four of them ran outside to see the twenty-four men dead all with bloody noses and ears, their eyes rolled into their heads. "Bastards," Thread said "Our weapons are useless against these things! Twenty-four men dead just like that! We're doomed, we will all die here."

Hunter looked at him "What happened to you Romulus?" Hunter asked, his eyes narrowing "You used to be able to torture men to death, and now look at you, you're nothing but a sniveling mess. All because you're scared of some fucking animals?"

"Don't you see Hunter?" Thread said in a panicked tone. "They are better than us! Stronger, smarter you remember the law of evolution survival of the fittest? We lost they are the next step!"

"Evolution states that if you don't adapt you will be devoured." Hunter said "And I will adapt, I will do whatever it takes to rid the earth of these monsters!" Thread glared at him before storming off. Hunter turned his gaze towards Katniss. "Listen Katniss, I'm going out there, into the wilderness. The dark ones came from the somewhere so I will find where they live. This threat must be eliminated at any cost. Take this" he handed her a brass shell casing the size of her index finger. The open end had been twisted shut. "If I am not back tomorrow don't come looking for me, you need to go to district five and find a man named Ulman give that token to him, he'll know what it means" Hunter picked up the gate key from a dead peacekeeper and unlocked the gate. He walked through into the snowy forest and walked off into the trees.

"_Homo Novus_" Peeta muttered to himself

"What?" Katniss asked confused.

"_Homo Novus_" Peeta said again "It means New Man. I wrote a short story for English class about a race of new life forms visiting the ruins of extinct humans, I referred to them as _Homo Novus_. What happened here reminds me of it. C'mon let's get back to the house."


	5. Escape

Hunter did not return, Katniss had hoped he would. With him gone she now had to travel alone to district 5 and meet some stranger named Ulman and apparently he would lead her to Gale. She had to go, she had promised Hunter and as far as she was concerned Hunter was a friend of Gale. This could be her only chance to get out of the district. A train would be leaving soon to bring a small group of peacekeepers to the capitol so they could contact the capitol about the dark ones. As she sat on an old couch, studying a map of Panem, she traced the route with her finger. "12 to capitol, capitol to 1 and then 1 to 5." She kept thinking over and over again. The shortest rail line would take her straight through capitol territory but would luckily end in district 5, rebel territory.

"Studying?" Peeta said leaning forward reading over shoulder.

"Yah, I have the route in mind but I'm not sure if I can find a way for both of us to stow away on the train to district 1." Katniss replied. They already had a plan to reach the Capitol, security in district 12 was pretty light and the dark one attacks have left a lot of peacekeepers dead.

"Well maybe we could find an avox worker that recognizes us and we could work something out." Peeta suggested with uncertainty. "Then from district 1 we could walk to district 5, which should only take four days. But as for the fascists, they might not let us in."

"Fascists? What Fascists?" Katniss asked perplexed. She knew that the rebel movement had split apart, district 13 was all by itself, while districts 3 and 9 were supposedly the "true rebel alliance" and district 11 was resisting the capitol as well

"Oh sorry," Peeta apologized. "I overheard a few things and saw on the news that district 5's mayor was killed yesterday and some maniac who calls himself fuhrer is in charge of what he calls 'the fourth Reich'". It was almost laughable, the Capitol itself was pretty much fascist and now it seemed some people just made their own version and thought it to be better when in fact it was nearly identical. But Reich was still composed of rebels, surely they would let the mockingjay through.

Peeta sat down on the couch putting his arm around Katniss as he looked at the map as well. Looking at the different rail lines. The railways had been drawn in with different colors, red, blue and yellow. "What if we walked from here to district 13 and then got a hovercraft? That would take only about three days. I mean there are no capitol patrols anywhere."

"District 13?" Peeta scoffed "District 13 would shoot us as soon as they saw us, they made a big statement saying we had betrayed the spirit of the rebellion." When Katniss and Gale crashed in the hovercraft her body was not found and the district 13 concluded that she was either died or betrayed the rebels by abandoning the people of Panem". Katniss was slightly alarmed by this statement, the rebels and the capitol hated her. Panem was getting quite small. Peeta checked the clock, the time was 11:45 PM "Well one hour until the train leaves, we should get going." He said getting up from the couch to pack food for the trip.

In the dead of night the two made their way down side streets until they reached the train station. A small platform with a large white train being loaded with food for the journey. Katniss and Peeta both had their own food packed in two leather satchels. A few cans of soup, six bottles of water and two loaves of bread was all they had. The soup would have to be eaten cold but it was far better than starving to death. The made their way through the maze of crates that lined the depot stopping and hiding when they heard footsteps. Huge stacks of metal crates made perfect for perfect hiding spots, however, they had to be sure their packs and equipment didn't clang against them which would cause a clanging sound that would surely reveal their location. They both wore simple Jeans and black wool jackets, enough to keep them warm without being too bulky. Katniss brought the militarized bow Hunter had given her as well as a knife, but that was more for practical use. Peeta too had a knife, but also a peacekeeper handgun which he had refused to tell how he obtained.

With every peacekeeper that passed by Katniss' heart began to race as she held her breath waiting for them to pass. They kept moving slowly crate by crate pausing as peacekeepers walked by. Then they heard the engine of the train start up as steam began to rise from the lead car. "Shit, we got to move now!" Peeta shouted in a hushed tone. The wheels began to move as the train slowly picked up speed, there was a small ladder on each car leading to the roof, if they could grab on to one they could get in through the roof hatch. Hoping for speed to be their security the two made a dash for the ladder. Each step felt like an eternity as they sprinted towards the car. Katniss reached the ladder and started climbing when suddenly one of the peacekeepers snapped his head around and saw them.

"Hey!" he shouted readying his rifle. Katniss had reached the roof now, but Peeta was only a few feet away from the ladder when the peacekeeper pulled the trigger. Bullets splattered on the floor and the side of the train with one striking Peeta's leg. There was a clanging metallic sound as sparks flew from Peeta's now shattered prosthetic leg. He fell to the ground but quickly scrambled behind a stone pillar and began firing back with his pistol. Muzzle flashes illuminated the station platform until one struck the peacekeeper in the throat, splashing his white armor with crimson. Alarms sounded as Peeta was left stranded on the platform while the train sped away with Katniss on board. She screamed his name, in desperate hope that it would somehow help him. It was too late, the train had left the station and Peeta and district 12 soon faded into the darkness.


End file.
